Research Articles

Pt 1: Thinking chickens: a review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken.

Marino, L. Thinking chickens: a review of cognition, emotion, and behavior in the domestic chicken. Anim Cogn20, 127–147 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-016-1064-4

I found this article by using Advance Search Complete. I started navigating through the generator by using key words such as: chicken, intelligence, social, and cognitive. It did not take me very long to find, but the full article is not available without requesting it from the UC. I was however, able to find it on a different website.

By compiling comparative studies relating to chicken cognition, emotions, and sociability, this article aims to understand chicken cognition through various scientific literature. Through various research, the author noted twelve things about the subject being: sensory ability, visual cognition, spatial orientation, numerical abilities, time perception, foreseeing, logic, self awareness, communication, social complexity, emotion, and personality.

It is concluded that there are not a lot of research done on chicken cognition; whereas research on chickens as food is abundant.

Most do not think very highly of chickens and if anything, categorize them more as food than bird. This article found many reasons that could help change that. In one of the surveys the author went over, they have found that many people's views of chickens changed for the better once they learned that chickens are capable of having personality and showing affection.

The protagonist of this article are chickens.

Pt 2: A Screen-Peck Task for Investigating Cognitive Bias in Laying Hens

Deakin A, Browne WJ, Hodge JJL, Paul ES, Mendl M (2016) A Screen-Peck Task for Investigating Cognitive Bias in Laying Hens. PLoS ONE 11(7): e0158222. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0158222

This article was found using Plos One.

The study begins with training the hens. Whenever a clicking sound is produced by a clicker, the hens are given a reward. On the following day, the hens were placed in a box with a computer in front of them. The screen was blank, but they were trained to associate that with rewards. On day three, a dot was added to the screen. The hens now were then only rewarded had they pecked the dot. From there, the study moved on to the second stage which is, determining which color dots is associated with a reward and which is associated with a punishment. The high saturation dots if pecked, will award them with mealworms, but should they peck the low saturation dots, they will be hit with a puff of air. In the last stage, the hens were made to do the same pecking tasks as before, but now with varying temperatures. Throughout all stages, the hens were quicker to peck for the reward, and their speed increased when the temperature was raised.

In conclusion, only four out of eight birds were able to complete the tasks. The warmer temperature had a faster clicking speed than the colder.

This study shows whether or not hens are mentally affected by surrounding influences as we do.

The protagonist are the laying hens.